


Hold Together

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Uncertain Point of View [16]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bespin, F/M, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Han Solo Lives, Kylo Ren Redemption, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, POV Han Solo, POV Second Person, Post-Battle of Starkiller Base, Redemption Isn't Simple, Skywalker Family Feels, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers, Starkiller Base, and you thought YOUR in-laws were bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17488790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: Your name is Han Solo.You went to Starkiller Base to find your son, Ben. You thought that you weren't going to survive this.You were wrong.





	Hold Together

Your name is Han Solo.

You're surprised you've survived this long.

Not that you've been trying to die—even though it sometimes seems that way to other people—it's just that you never expected to make it to the age you are now.

You spent your younger days no better than a street rat, dodging Imperials and CorSec and the White Worms, and you never expected to make it to twenty.

Then you met Chewbacca and deserted the Imperial Army for a life of freedom (and, well, crime), and you never expected to make it to thirty.

Then you met the most impossible woman in the galaxy and joined her Rebellion but, even though you beat the odds every time, you never expected to make it to forty.

But you did. You even made it to fifty, and then to sixty, and now here you are, still alive in spite of the fact that you really shouldn't have survived anything that has ever happened to you.

Only now, you're pretty sure that you're not going to make it to tomorrow.

You aren't getting out of this one and you know it.

You wonder if Leia knew this when she told you to find your son and bring him home. She probably did, you think, but didn’t want to admit it. There was (is) a slim enough chance it would work that you had to try. She’s probably back on D’Qar right now hoping that this will be yet another time that you’ll beat the odds.

It’s one of the things that you’ve never been able to fully understand about your wife: how she can be beautifully idealistic one moment and then viciously pragmatic the next. You don’t know which version of her sent you to Starkiller Base, but you think the answer to that question might depend on whether or not you succeed.

You remind yourself that she didn’t send you. It was your idea. You volunteered to go disable the shield generator of the First Order’s superweapon (why is it always superweapons?) and rescue Rey, the girl who returned the _Falcon_ to you and Chewie. Finn, the ex-stormtrooper (ex- _j_ _anitor_ , you found out about ten minutes too late), helped you get inside.

While you were sneaking through the base, it occurred to you that, yet again, it’s you and Chewie helping a wide-eyed kid rescue a girl from a superweapon. Really, all you’re missing is the droids and it would be the first Death Star all over again.

But this time around, you realize with a sinking feeling in your stomach, you’re not the hotshot pilot.

You’re Ben Kenobi.

Just like him, you’re about to confront the young man who you were _supposed_ to take care of, who you were _supposed_ to teach about right and wrong, who you were _supposed_ to never give up on.

Just like him, it’s probably going to get you killed.

But, just like him, you can’t avoid it.

You hope that Chewbacca understands that, at least. The fact that he hasn’t locked you in a compartment on the _Falcon_ to keep you from going might be a sign that he understands. Either that or, for the first time in the decades upon decades that you’ve known each other, you finally managed to fool him about something.

He’ll still blame himself afterwards, of course. You can’t stop that part. But hopefully he’ll remember that Rey and Finn are going to need someone to watch out for them because, for all their energy and enthusiasm, they’re still basically kids and therefore idiots, just like you were at that age. Hopefully he’ll realize that taking care of idiots is a better option than revenge.

The explosives are almost all in place when you see him:

Ben. Your son.

The arguments that you and Leia had over what to name him were extreme enough to border on the absurd. You had assumed that she’d want to name him after her father on Alderaan (you both agreed that there was no way in hell that Anakin Skywalker deserved a namesake, no matter what Luke said about how he was redeemed at the end of his life), but she said that she wanted to name him after a Jedi because it was almost certain that your child would be able to use the Force. You pointed out that Ben wasn’t even his real name, and she shot back that going through life with a name like Obi-Wan was a step too far, and you couldn’t argue with that part. You then reminded her that she never even _met_ Kenobi, so why did he even matter to her, and she replied that if it hadn’t been for him, the two of you would never have met.

You had no answer to that, and you probably should have saved your breath and just let her win the argument in the first place, because the only people who have ever told your wife ‘no’ are currently clouds of ash floating in the debris of a pair of Death Stars.

Ben was nearly as intense as a child, to the point that you never really knew how to talk to him because you couldn’t understand half of the things he was going through. You taught him how to play sabacc (which he hated) and how to fly (which he loved), but you barely believed in anything Luke said about the Force (in spite of watching him do things like hoist Threepio into the air like the droid was caught in a tractor beam), so how could you possibly relate to any of the strange things that kept happening around your son?

Which was why, when Luke offered to take him for training, you let him. You almost didn’t: for a single moment, you caught a look in your son’s eyes and realized that he didn’t want to go. You almost said something. You almost told Luke to wait, to let Ben figure things out for a little longer, but you didn’t. You figured that Luke knew better than you did, so you let him take Ben away.

Maybe if you had said no, you wouldn’t be stepping out onto this walkway over a pit of death (why is it always a pit?) that is plunging down into the heart of the base.

You knew about the mask and you knew about the cape and you knew how much he was trying to look like Darth Vader, trying to _be_ Darth Vader, but for some bizarre reason the first thing that pops into your head when you see him is that his posture is _terrible_.

He obviously got that from you.

Maybe that’s why you’re here: to remind him that, even though the entire galaxy likes to _think_ that it does, not everything revolves around the damn Skywalker family. Sure, all you have is a ship and a Wookiee best friend and a surname that you invented on the fly (not to mention a failing business and about a hundred thousand credits of debt), but it’s something. He’s Ben _Solo_ , after all, not Ben Skywalker. You’re here to remind him of that.

Admittedly, you needed to remind yourself of that too. It was easier to pretend that he was Luke’s kid, not yours—you could walk away from your responsibility and claim that you had done all you could.

You could have done more. That’s why you’re here.

You ask him to take off his mask and you see his face for the first time in years. You brace yourself for anger, for bitterness, for hatred… but it’s something else instead.

He’s miserable.

He’s the second-in-command of a military force that is (now that Hosnian Prime is gone) the most powerful in the galaxy, he’s the head of an order of Dark Side users, and he’s miserable.

Whatever he thought he was going to get by following that Snoke guy ultimately led to nothing.

Which is why, when he starts in with that dramatic nonsense about how your son is dead and how the Supreme Leader is wise (these titles get more ridiculous every time, you think), you know that he doesn’t believe a word of it.

What he does believe, though, is that it’s too late for him.

Maybe if Luke were here, if he weren't part of the catastrophe that corrupted your son in the first place, he would have said something about Vader and how even he turned his back on the Dark Side.

But you don't have to know about the Force to know about how it's never too late.

After all, you're here now.

That isn't what he needs to hear right now either, and you're not great with speeches anyway, so you tell him what Leia told you:

“We miss you. Come home.”

He looks like he's about to cry. He says that he's being torn apart. He asks you to help him and you agree.

Ben takes out his lightsaber and, even though you're sure that he's about to use it on you, you can't help hoping that maybe this won't end the way that you think it will.

But at least you can die knowing that you tried. You did everything you could.

Your son throws his lightsaber over the rail and it vanishes into the abyss.

He looks just like he did back when you realized that he didn't want to go with Luke.

You didn't say anything then. You can say something now.

“We're about to blow this place up.”

Ben's expression doesn't change. “I know.”

“Need a ride?”

* * *

On the _Falcon_ , Rey and Finn are looking at Ben like he's some kind of thermal detonator.

Which is understandable: only a few days ago he was Finn’s commander, and only a few hours ago, he was Rey’s captor. And he’d tried killing all of you in the intervening time.

So it’s obviously a little awkward.

For his part, Ben is slumped over on the dejarik table with his head in his hands and hasn’t said a word since you left Starkiller Base. Chewbacca briefly looked like he was going to give the boy a hug, but reconsidered and just placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder with a reassuring roar before joining you in the cockpit.

Like most of your life, you hadn’t expected to survive this long, so you never had a plan for what exactly you would do if you succeeded in convincing Ben to come back with you. It occurs to you that showing up at the Resistance base with the second-in-command of the First Order might upset a few people.

After setting a course for pretty much anywhere (since flying directly to D’Qar takes a few jumps anyway), you rejoin the others and ask for suggestions on your final destination.

Rey suggests Jakku and all of you, including Ben, look at her like she’s crazy.

So you default to what you usually do when you aren’t sure where to go next.

You hope it ends up going better than your first trip there.

* * *

This time, when he says “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here,” you’re pretty sure that he means it. He must remember how many credits you owe him: a _lot_ of credits.

After the war, Lando Calrissian decided that ‘Baron Administrator’ still had a better ring to it than ‘General’ and went back to Cloud City with Lobot; after all, the two of them led the mission that liberated it from the Empire after Endor—why shouldn’t they have been rewarded for their efforts?

His anger stops when you tell him that you brought Ben, who is still sitting on the _Falcon_. Then he’s just alarmed.

“Han, I swear, if the First Order shows up here, I’m just going to let them _have you_.”

But he does let you in, even though it’s more for Ben and Chewie’s sake than yours.

Rey and Finn are both so out of their element that it’s actually kind of cute. Ben used to come here with you when he was little, back before you had burned through all of your goodwill with Lando, so you leave Ben under Chewie’s supervision and the other two in the capable (if still slightly irresponsible) hands of Lando, and go call Leia.

The fact that she looks relieved to hear from you tells you all you need to know about whether you were sent by Leia the idealist or Leia the pragmatist.

The version who speaks to you now, however, is the pragmatist: she agrees that Ben can’t come to the Resistance. You offer to go get him now so that she can talk to him, but she refuses: if she sees her son, she says, it won’t matter that she has a Resistance to lead or that him coming to D’Qar is a bad idea—she’d stop at nothing to see him in person.

You hate the idea of postponing the chance to have your family back together, but you know that she’s right. She usually is.

 _Your family._ You realize you forgot about Luke.

Remembering Luke, though, reminds you that Ben killed or corrupted all of Luke's other students. It reminds you of all the other deaths Ben has left in his wake over the years. It reminds you of Hosnian Prime and the fact that an entire star system is gone and that your son was part of the reason why it was destroyed.

It might be a very long time before Ben can truly come home, you realize.

* * *

Cloud City holds some bad memories for you. There are a lot of places here that you go out of your way to avoid.

They still have the detention block here, but the equipment that Vader tortured you with is gone. There was that room where you first realized that Lando had sold you out (even though you know that he didn't have any choice), but you’ve only passed it once or twice.

And then there's a whole section of the city that you never want to see again: the chambers where they freeze Tibanna gas in blocks of carbonite.

Which is why you're pretty furious with yourself when you find that you've wandered back here without realizing what you were doing.

You can't shake the feeling of cold, a cold so deep that it froze you from the inside out. You can't shake the memory of that horrible place of half-remembered nightmares as your body struggled to cope with hibernation.

Your thoughts bring back the sound of Chewie's anguished howls and Leia confessing that she loved you and, behind it all, the unceasing hiss of Vader's breathing.

Vader. He's been dead for decades and he still found ways to torture your family from beyond the grave. He was the source of Luke's fears, Ben's obsessions, Leia's bitterness, and the lingering feeling of endless pursuit that kept you running and running long after the danger had passed.

And Chewie, with memories stretching back to long before the time of the Clone Wars, memories that he still won’t talk about because remembering the days before the Empire means remembering everything he lost. For a long time, you didn’t know that he recognized Kenobi from old wartime holoreels, or that he had once met Yoda, or that he was one of a billion Republic citizens who breathlessly followed the heroic exploits of Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight.

He took Ben’s fall just as hard as you and Leia did, which is why he won’t let your son out of his sight now that he’s back.

At least that’s what you thought, because Ben is here in the carbon freezing chamber, alone.

He doesn’t see you; in fact, he seems to be following someone. You used to be that nimble, a long time ago, but now you can’t follow him as he makes his way down and across guardrails and access hatches and convenient places for hand and footholds. You can’t follow him down to the maintenance catwalk stretching out into the vast emptiness leading down and below the floating city (why is it always pits?), so you watch from one of the windows.

Luke told you about this place. He lost both his hand and his last scraps of innocence here.

He must have told Ben about it too, because your son is now standing at the very edge of the catwalk, looking down at the same void that your brother-in-law once threw himself into rather than be captured.

You realize with a stab of terror what your son is probably thinking right now.

“He’ll be alright,” says an unfamiliar voice to your left. “You weren’t too late.”

You turn and look at a face that you’ve only seen in holos, the few from the Clone Wars that the Empire wasn’t able to completely erase.

Of course the ghost of Anakin Skywalker would be lurking around here.

“I thought only Jedi could see ghosts like this,” you say, trying to ignore how your voice is shaking and how badly you want to draw your blaster and fire it at him until you drain the power pack dry.

“The Force is never simple,” he says with a shrug. You try to imagine Darth Vader shrugging. You aren’t ready for this conversation. You know that Leia would have found some way to attack him by now even if he isn’t corporeal.

“Why aren’t you talking to _him?_ ” you ask. “He’s the one who idolized you. I’m just here wishing there was a way for you to come back to life so that I could kill you.”

“He didn’t idolize me,” Anakin says. “He idolized some imaginary version of me: a version who never struggled with anything, or doubted anything, or needed anything—or anyone. Even if I tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t recognize me.”

“So why me?” you demand.

“You’re really going to hate me for saying this,” (you have no doubt about that, because you’re currently hating _everything_ he’s saying), “but out of all of them—even Luke—you’re the one who’s the most like me.”

Your reply is in the form of profanity that would strip the paint from the hull of the _Falcon_.

“It’s true, though,” he says. “I spent my whole life surprised to have survived anything that ever happened to me. The odds that I’d even make it to ten years old were pretty slim—lots of slave kids on Tatooine didn’t. I found a way off-planet by joining an organization that I didn’t even really believe in, I never understood why anyone could possibly think I was a hero because I felt like a nonstop screw-up, and I fell in love with someone who seemed so far above me that I didn’t understand why she would even look at me, let alone love me in return.”

“So you’re saying that Leia married someone just like her father.”

“Well, when you put it _that_ way, it doesn’t sound great.”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” you snap. You don’t want to feel a connection with this man. You don’t want to identify with him. “We are _nothing_ alike. I don’t care that Luke forgave you and that you get to spend the afterlife patting yourself on the back for the one moment that you felt sorry for something that you did. You destroyed everything—the galaxy _and_ my family—and it’s going to take decades to fix what you ruined.” You angrily slam your fist against the window because you’re now realizing that Ben is going to have to do something that Vader never had to do: face the consequences of his mistakes.

It’s so much easier to think of someone as just a hero or just a villain, and Ben will have to spend the rest of his life being both.

“I don’t know what to do,” you admit. You hate that you’re confiding in him.

“You’re already doing it,” Anakin says. “Be there. None of us ever got to go home, but maybe he can.”

“People aren’t going to forget what he did. They’re not going to forgive him.”

“Do you forgive him?” he asks.

You see Rey, with Anakin’s old lightsaber clipped to her belt, walk out to meet Ben at the end of the catwalk.

“I do,” you say, but the ghost is already gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Music: The World/Inferno Friendship Society, "Brother of the Mayor of Bridgewater"


End file.
